Elder Thing
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The Elder Things (also known as the Old Ones[1]) are fictional aliens in the Cthulhu Mythos. The beings first appeared in H. P. Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness (1936). Additional references to the Elder Things appear in Lovecraft's short stories "The Dreams in the Witch-House" (1933) and "The Shadow Out of Time" (1936).
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[edit] Summary
Six feet end to end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious growths – combs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans. . . which gives almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monsters of primal myth, especially fabled Elder Things in [the] Necronomicon.
—H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
The Elder Things were the first alien species to come to the Earth, colonizing the planet about one billion years ago.[2] They stood roughly six feet tall and had the appearance of a huge, oval-shaped barrel with starfish-like appendage at both ends. The top appendage was a head adorned with five eyes, five eating tubes, and a set of cilia for "seeing" without light. The bottom appendage was five-limbed and was used for walking and other forms of locomotion. The beings also had five leathery, retractable wings and five sets of tentacles that sprouted from their torsos. Both their tentacles and the slits housing their folded wings were spaced at regular intervals about their bodies.
The Elder Things were vegetable-like in shape, having radial symmetry instead of the bilateral symmetry of bipeds. They also differed in that they had a five-lobed brain. In terms of nutrition and reproduction, the Elder Things exhibited vegetal as well as animal characteristics. Though they could make use of both organic and inorganic substances, the Elder Things were preferably carnivorous. They were also amphibious.
The bodies of the Elder Things were incredibly tough, capable of withstanding the pressures of the deepest ocean. Few died except by accident or violence. The beings were also capable of hibernating for vast epochs of time. Nonetheless, unlike other beings of the mythos, the Elder Things were made of normal, terrestrial matter.
[edit] Technology and Society
Technology
The technology that the Elder Things possessed was not described at length, but was described as being extremely advanced, and At the Mountains of Madness even makes an off-hand mention that they may have had directed-energy weaponry.
Society
Because they reproduced through spores, there was little biological basis for families to form, and were thus grouped together with others whom they would get along with. Elderian "families" lived in large dwellings, where furniture and other decoration was placed in the center of the rooms, to leave the walls open for murals.
In furnishing their homes they kept everything in the center of the huge rooms, leaving all the wall spaces free for decorative treatment. Lighting, in the case of the land inhabitants, was accomplished by a device probably electro-chemical in nature. Both on land and under water they used curious tables, chairs and couches like cylindrical frames - for they rested and slept upright with folded-down tentacles - and racks for hinged sets of dotted surfaces forming their books. Government was evidently complex and probably socialistic, though no certainties in this regard could be deduced from the sculptures we saw. There was extensive commerce, both local and between different cities - certain small, flat counters, five-pointed and inscribed, serving as money. Probably the smaller of the various greenish soapstones found by our expedition were pieces of such currency. Though the culture was mainly urban, some agriculture and much stock raising existed. Mining and a limited amount of manufacturing were also practiced. Travel was very frequent, but permanent migration seemed relatively rare except for the vast colonizing movements by which the race expanded. For personal locomotion no external aid was used, since in land, air, and water movement alike the Old Ones seemed to possess excessively vast capacities for speed. Loads, however, were drawn by beasts of burden - Shoggoths under the sea, and a curious variety of primitive vertebrates in the later years of land existence.
—H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
[edit] History
The Elder Things built huge cities, both underwater and on dry land. They may be responsible for the appearance of the first life-forms on Earth, including the entity known as Ubbo-Sathla (although sources differ in this regard). They bio-engineered the dreaded shoggoths to be their all-purpose slave race. Eventually, however, the shoggoths rebelled—an event that hastened the decadence and ultimate collapse of their civilization.
They are known to have warred against the star-spawn of Cthulhu, the Great Race of Yith, and the Mi-go. Despite these conflicts, it was the gradual cooling of the planet during the last ice age that spelled their doom. Retreating to their undersea cities deep in the ocean, they would thereafter have no further dealings with the outer world. Their last surface city, located on a high plateau in the Antarctic, remains frozen in ice. The ruins of this city were discovered in 1931 by two members of an Antarctic expedition from Miskatonic University. (The Call of Cthulhu role-playing game features a scenario in which the Elder Thing city is rediscovered and subsequently explored by expeditions sent to "New Schwabia" by the National Socialist government of Germany during the late 1930s and 1940s.)
[edit] References
- Harms, Daniel (1998). "Elder Things", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, 2nd ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium, pp. 99–100. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.
- Lovecraft, Howard P. [1936] (2005). "At the Mountains of Madness", At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition. New York, NY: The Modern Library. ISBN 0-8129-7441-7 (paperback). Introduction by China Miéville.
- Petersen, Sandy. Call of Cthulhu, 5th ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 1-56882-148-4.
[edit] Notes
- ^ The term "Old Ones" should not be confused with the Great Old Ones. This is a separate group and is described as being enemies of the Elder Things in At the Mountains of Madness.
- ^ Harms, "Appendix D: Timeline of the Cthulhu Mythos", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, p. 384.
